Citation Style Language
I’m at the point where I really need some input on the citation style language I’ve been developing along with XSLT stylesheets. Current archive is posted here.
I really need input from people with a knowledge of both XML and other citation style languages, either bibtex .bst files or the binary styling files in applications like Endnote or Reference Manager. I also need input in particular from people who regularly use either the numbered or citekey styles common in the hard sciences, or note-based styles common in the humanities.
Examples included in the archive.
The (annotated) citation style schema is written in RELAX NG. I will ultimately generate an XML Schema version of it, but not now.
The primary reason for this is that RNG allows me to constrain the schema more finely than I can with XML Schema (the class attribute on the root controls validation throughout the rest of the schema in RNG). So, the design of the schema reflects how the underling XSL code is designed, and indeed how I believe it ought to be designed in any language.
If anyone wants to actually play with the schema, I strongly recommend nxml mode in emacs. It’s simply excellent, and properly represents the schema to the user (not all editors have fully implemented RNG support; for example, Oxygen doesn’t handle it that well, and presents a looser view of the schema to the user than I intend).
Including a XML Schema is really necessary to be able to try this out within Word (which doesn’t support Relax). I think there are automated conversions tools for RNG->XML Schema. That might avoid the need for any real effort to create the port.
Yes, Trang will convert is automatically. I just don’t want to do that right now, as the normative schema is designed in RELAX NG (I don’t want people commenting on a schema that does not fully represent my intentions). Once that’s stable, I’ll create the XSD.
Also, I’m not sure it’d be useful for people to be able to create/edit these from within Word